August 14, 2008 1:31 PM

"Reporting"

This dispatch from the Chicago Sun-Times Lynn Sweet should be printed out and posted in every journalism school in America as proof positive that the craft once known as "reporting" is about as obsolete as the horse and buggy.

When I went to journalism school, they taught us that when you publish something for a newspaper, you try to inform readers as much as possible about your sources. Even when they are on background, you are supposed to give readers some context - any context - about where what you are reporting as fact is actually emanating from (Oh, and you try to - ya know - do some actual reporting, rather than reprinting your own personal speculation).

And yet, Sweet's entire premise for reporting "Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.) is moving up on the list of potential running mates" for Barack Obama is that that's she's "just passing on the latest I'm hearing."

We have no idea where she's "hearing" this from at all. Is she hearing it from Joe Biden? Is she hearing it from Chris Cillizza, who himself is saying he's hearing it? Or is she just hearing it in her own head? And wouldn't it be nice to know why Biden is theoretically moving up on the list considering he's a tiny-state senator who is so nationally important and respected that he recently ended up as a rounding error in a Democratic presidential primary?

This, folks, is how today's "reporters" simultaneously avoid doing real work, while manufacturing story lines out of nothing: They "just pass on the latest they are hearing" without even a shred of actual reporting or context whatsoever, package it as legitimate fact-based journalism, and then see if their laziness can quite literally create a storyline out of thin air.

Welcome to "reporting" in the 21st century.